A day after the BJP-led Union Government regularised 895 unauthorised colonies in the national Capital, Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) questioned this move of the BJP saying that the residents of the settlements will not get any concrete benefit even if an Ordinance was approved to extend relief.
The parties contended that the decision will merely extend the cut-off date for regularisation of such colonies over the previous resolution that was brought by the UPA Government in 2007. Questioning the Union Cabinet decision, Delhi Congress President Arvinder Singh lovely said, “God save the people of Delhi. Extending the deadline cannot help BJP in regularisation,” adding, “the Union Cabinet has just extended the cut-off date of colonies. The rest of the existing guidelines will remain the same for regularisation of these colonies.”
The Congress leader said the Congress party had not only regularised 895 unauthorised colonies, but had also issued gazette notification regarding this decision. He said during the Congress rule, Rs1,200 crore had been spent for the development of the unauthorised colonies and works on laying sewer and drinking water pipelines and concrete roads had also been started.
lovely also alleged that during the past 11 months, all the development works in these colonies had come to a grinding halt, for which the BJP and the 49-day old AAP Government were responsible. The Congress leaders also alleged that none of the BJP and AAP party MlAs had spent a copper from their MlA funds for the development of these colonies. lovely, taking the BJP to task, said whenever the BJP came to power at the Centre and in Delhi, there was no instance of a single unauthorised colony getting regularised.
He recalled that for the first time in Delhi, 612 unauthorised colonies were regularised in 1976-77 when Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister, and after that, 895 colonies were regularised by the Congress Government in Delhi. AAP leader Manish Sisodia said, “The cut-off date has merely been extended through updating the previous resolution adopted by the UPA in 2007. But the residents of the colonies will still not be able to get even a map sanctioned from the municipal corporation. There will still not be any development work through MCD or MlA funds.”
Sisodia said that BJP and Congress treat the unauthorised colony residents like “milch cows” by offering them a “lollipop” ahead of every election. “They treat the people of the unauthorised colonies like milch cows. Before every election, they offer them a lollipop to catch votes, but take no concrete action whatsoever,” the former AAP Minister said. The party said the decision was akin to then Sheila Dikshit’s Government’s move to give provisional certificates and then forget about such colonies.
In a decision that will benefit about 60 lakh people in poll-bound Delhi, Union Cabinet on Monday approved an Ordinance to regularise 895 unauthorised colonies, which have come up till June 1 this year.
Parties step into campaign mode
n Congress president Sonia Gandhi and Vice President Rahul Gandhi will kickstart the party’s campaign for Delhi Assembly polls with a “mega rally” after January 10, as the party gears up to bring out its first list of candidates in a day or two. Sources said that both Rahul and Sonia will address the rally, whose timing will be finalised after the rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Reports had it that Modi is likely to address a rally in the national Capital on January 10 to bolster his party’s campaign. Banking on Narendra Modi’s “wave”, BJP is hoping to increase its tally while AAP, which faced strong criticism after Kejriwal quit as Chief Minister, is trying to hard to gain lost ground. While the view in Congress is that it may not be in a position to form Government, it will better its tally from the previous polls.
